It's Dark and Hell Is Hot ...

So yesterday I wrote a blog post.  

"What?" You say. "I see no blog post from yesterday, ThirtyWhat!"

No, you don't.   Because I didn't publish it.   Despite finishing the whole thing complete with graphic at the top and lyric at the bottom, I didn't hit that publish button. 

Primarily because I'm a coward.

We live in a fucked up time.  We're in the darkest timeline.    We have a leader previously best known from his reality television series and currently best known for his fondness for late-night tweets and terrifying proclivity for poking unstable leaders of nuclear-armed nations.  I don't care if you like him.  Any rational person would read his "little rocket man" tweets, hear about the erroneous missile alert in Hawaii, and feel a twinge of actual dread in the pit of their stomach.

So yeah ... there's our shared nightmare each night when watching the evening news.

But there's more.  So much more.

And the thing is ... I feel like, as a country, we've developed this tendency to take any issue, either good or bad, and ride that horse as hard and fast as possible until it fall over dead frothing from the mouth.  Every issue, no matter how good or well intentioned, must be lovingly obsessed over until we've created a filmy bubble that will inevitably burst all over us in a spectacular spray of fatigue.

Let's take the whole #MeToo thing.

I wrote a blog post yesterday about an incident that happened to me when I was in my early 20's.  Essentially, the point of the post was that while we should obviously teach men to read facial and body cues and basically just not be sexually aggressive monsters ... we should also be teaching young women to not just say no ... but to make a goddamn scene.  To be a bad ass ... to wield a flaming sword of fury and say, "I SAID NO!"

This post was more about my unwillingness to make waves back then ... not about victim blaming others or even myself.

And yet ... I see dozens of articles where women are immediately turning on one another when someone in the herd doesn't give the desired call and response.   And while I basically have no readers anymore, the last thing I need is an inbox full of vitriol for what is just a nagging thought I've been having.

And while that may still happen, I do have one thing I want to say.   The whole sexual assault backlash is necessary and good.   Too many women have had to keep their silence about men, whether powerful or not, who deserved to have their dirty laundry aired. 

But as I said above, this culture has a nasty habit of creating bubbles around whatever bone on which we're all chewing.  And when this breaks ... once we've spent day after day after day after day of hearing, "This famous man assaulted me" ... "This famous man pulled his penis out" ... "This famous man grabbed my breast ..." ... how long before the fatigue sets in and we start sighing and saying, "Of course he did."

I don't have an answer how to fix that problem.  I don't have any answers, in fact.  

On a personal level, I'm lucky.  My life is blissfully happy.  I deal with little blips on the radar ... but overall, my world is a happy, safe place. 

But out there?  It's a mad world.

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very very
Mad world

 Mad world

Tears for Fears - Mad World